Talked to several sources this weekend about Texas joining the Pac-12 and the future of the Longhorn Network.

Let’s get right to it.

*** Texas-to-the-Pac is not happening in the next 24 or 36 hours, folks. It could be a week, or weeks.

There are far too many issues still to be worked out, many of them involving UT’s ultimate willingness to make the concessions necessary to join the Pac-12.

Despite what you may have read, the school and the conference are “nowhere near any agreement,” according to one source.

(That doesn’t mean a deal won’t be reached, only that there are several layers to the negotiations and it could take time.)

*** The Austin-American Statesman reported that Texas could join the Pac-12 and keep the Longhorn Network, essentially with its own revenue model:

The Longhorns would be able to keep all of their revenue from the network if that amount is greater than one-sixteenth of what the entire Pac-12 receives for its third-tier rights. However, if one-sixteenth of the money the Pac-12 receives from third-tier rights ends up being a larger amount, the schools would divide the revenue evenly and everybody would receive the same amount, the source said.

That is, at its very best, misleading.

For one thing, the Longhorn Network would have to be folded into the Pac-12 regional model — it wouldn’t exist as a separate entity.

What’s more, there is no chance that any school will have more than 1/16th of the revenue, whether it comes from the conference’s first, second or third-tier rights. NO CHANCE.

We’re more likely to see USC give up football and join the Big West.

Remember, the Pac-12 CEOs would like to have Texas, but they are not desperate to have Texas.

They have all the leverage.

Now … Would UT and ESPN have to work something out in regard to the $300 million Longhorn Network? Probably. A contract like that doesn’t simply get ripped up.

(Quick aside: Based on what media industry sources have told me about revenue projections for the league’s third-tier rights, they would trounce what Texas stands to make off TLN over time.)

*** Yes, yes, 100 times yes: The Pac-12 would add the Oklahoma schools and become a 14-team conference even if Texas follows a different path.

And if the number is 14, there’s a very good chance the conference would use the Zipper model for division alignment (i.e., split the natural rivals).

The league will not — I repeat: will not — pair USC and Oklahoma in the same division.

*** There’s a lot of confusion and concern about the division alignment in a 16-team league.

In particular, the Arizona schools, Utah and Colorado don’t want to be in the eastern division — they don’t want to get cut off from Los Angeles.

Here’s my educated guess as to how the conference would handle the situation. Call it the pod rotation system:

1. Divide the 16 teams into pods of four: the Northwest schools, the California schools, the Mountain schools and the Texas/Oklahoma schools (or the Kansas/Oklahoma schools).

You’d play the three teams in your pod every year and two teams from each of the other three pods to form the nine-game league schedule.

2. Pair two sets of pods to create one eight-team division and two sets of pods to create another eight-team division.

3. Keep the pods together for two years to provide home-and-home scheduling, and then switch the pod pairings.

In other words, the California schools could be paired with the Mountain schools in a division for two years, and then the California schools could be paired with the Northwest schools in a division for two years … and so on.

It’s critical to remember that — as with the 12-school negotiations last fall on divisions, scheduling and revenue sharing — commissioner Larry Scott’s goal would be to find a Pac-16 infrastructure that satisfies everyone … even if it doesn’t thrill anyone.

*** Last point: I’ve read and heard a lot about whether Scott has the CEO support to expand or is getting significant push-back from a handful of presidents and chancellors. (Nine votes are needed to approve new members.)

Jon Wilner

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Alchemist: I may be wrong, but I do not believe I’ve heard any representative of the University of Oregon complain about access to SoCal, or lack thereof … Wazzu and OSU voices seem muted now that the new TV contract rolled out. To me, Fuskie Nation alone is barking about the access issue. I will follow the party line of my hopefully not soon-to-be show caused head ball coach, and I paraphrase, “it is our (UO’s) goal to play in SoCal every year.” Meaning win the conference title and play in the Rose Bowl. Anyway, there is enough talent in CA and TX to go around. No CA and TX school can build a recruiting fence around their respective states.

Potstirrer

@alchemist,

You made me curious so I looked at the rosters. Here’s what I found (and what I assume you did):

I admit that OR’s number from Texas was surprising, but then again it turns out they might have been paying for them. Guess time and an investigation will tell. Also their current high-level status and association with Nike probably lets them recruit effectively from a wider area, which wouldn’t be true for the other schools.

Given the numbers above, do you think the NW block of schools is going to willingly vote for an expansion that would be structured to reduce access to CA by a third and substitute TX? I just can’t see why they’d do it. Not arguing at all that CA schools might want to get into TX, btw. Maybe they do.

Maybe a way to preserve the current (reduced) CA access for the NW schools is a divisional structure that works 3-3-2-1. Thus, the Pac-8 schools would be reunited but there would only be six games in the division: 3 within your own “pod” (used as a geographic reference here) and 3 with the other “pod”.

In this structure, the NW schools would get:

3 games in the NW
3 games in CA
2 games in TX/OK (or KU/MO)
1 game in AZ/Mtn

The AZ/Mtn schools would get:

3 games in AZ/Mtn
3 games in TX/OK
2 games in CA
1 game in the NW

The CA schools would get:

3 games in CA
3 games in the NW
2 games in AZ/Mtn
1 game in TX/OK

The TX/OK schools would get:

3 games in TX/OK
3 games in AZ/Mtn
2 games in the NW
1 game in CA

That’s a structure that the NW schools would probably vote for, as it would preserve their current 3 games in CA. It would also guarantee 2 games in CA and 3 games in TX/OK for the AZ/Mtn schools, so who knows — maybe they’d vote for it, too. For the CA schools it’s fairly close to the old Pac-8 alignment, but with more variety, though it’s true it doesn’t offer much access to TX/OK if you’re looking for that. The newcomers wouldn’t like it much, but then again they are newcomers. Maybe that’s just the price of getting in. They’d still get the big bucks, access to the Rose bowl, mostly regional opponents and a solid schedule of opponents.

A little input from Texas hoping not to offend. Each poster who mentions “Texans must have their way, etc.” should understand that Texas bravado, foolish bragging, etc., can almost always be attributed to those associated with The University of Texas at Austin. It’s something Texans have lived with for decades. If you take Texas, you must do so with the understanding they wake up every morning trying to figure a way to create more revenue at the expense of their partners. Your wife and girlfriend won’t be safe and you’ll have to sleep with one eye open. Thus far, their arrogance and self-estimation have destroyed the SWC, Big 8, and the Big 12. Suggest you watch out.

stanfordfan

Potstirrer, since the Pac 12 insists on balancing its financial windfall, I’m quite sure it will balance its schedule in a pod system. The CEO’s are going to adopt a schedule that is simple and defensible…

Stanford’s football gyrations over the past decade prove that access to certain states is a small factor, whereas coaching and recruiting prowess are huge…

If you build it (the program,) they will come (the recruits.)

Karl Benson

Once again, the Western Athletic Conference would like to welcome the University of Texas at Austin as a non-football member.

Mark

Something to consider before adding Kansas, Kansas State or Missouri: The population of the state of Kansas is 2,853,118. The population of Missouri is 5,988,927. The population of the Dallas Ft Worth Metropolitan area is 6,371,773. With most of Texas Tech’s students coming from DFW and returning there after graduation, Texas Tech probably deserves the consideration it seems to be getting from Larry Scott. Especially is TV households is the new currency in college football conference alignment.

Not sure where you get your MU info from, but here in MidMo most Mizzou fans clearly want the SEC. The PAC idea interests from the standpoint of possibly being partnered w/ old Big 8ers, OU, oSu, & KU, but still clearly a 2nd tier option to SEC. Importance of Texas recruiting grounds and the late start times (example was football game at ASU) are the main detractors.

Symphony Sid

(from Calfan’s #175 post above)

“I keep hearing about Texas’ huge sense of entitlement, but you know where I see that quality most: among CU fans with their “we’re owed” attitude like Sid above.”

———–

To compare CU’s (or my) sense of entitlement with Texas’ borders on the surreal. Are you serious? Texas singlehandedly blew up the Big 12 by demanding onerous special concessions. They really went hog wild after CU and NU left the conference.

CU never demanded a single thing from the Big 12, and did not in fact ‘demand’ special access to the LA market from the Pac 10. They just lobbied for it as hard as they could, and for at least a year have achieved it.

Fact: The Pac 10 doesn’t get to renegotiate their TV deal without expanding. Y’all had to take on two new teams in order to have a conference football championship game per NCAA rules. That championship game was crucial to being able to increase the TV money.

Why not take Boise St. and New Mexico? Why not take Fresno St. and SDSU? Oh, wait, the Pac 10 wants to maintain some academic integrity. So in fact Utah and CU do bring something to the table. They are both legitimate, research-based universities.

It’s true enough that the Pac didn’t get any of the money that CU paid to exit the Big 12. But they DID get a lot of new TV money that they wouldn’t have received otherwise, so in that sense the Pac 10 ‘owes’ Utah and CU for joining. Utah and CU ‘owe’ the Pac for taking them in.

My great fear is that the Pac 12 adds the Texas and Oklahoma schools and divides into the old Pac 8 and the new ‘Big 8’ divisions. CU gets stuck playing the same schools they used to play, schools with a lot more money and a lot easier admissions standards. If that happens we’ve truly screwed ourselves for a bag of silver.

I’m still predicting at least 4 Pac 12 schools look at this next expansion long and hard and say ‘Nyet.’

JackBeav

Been lurking for the last couple days, and I guess this is what I have to say.

UT and their fans are parochial. Imagine if they had a Gipper in their past. That being said, they are no worse than USC fans in that regard. If they agree to equality (like USC did), then they are welcome in this league. Austin is a great town, and the school is excellent.

Full disclosure: Rice was one of my schools, so I would love for them to be in the Pac. Their stadium is 70k big (tarps over the end seats for now) and historically significant (Super Bowl and “to the moon, America!”). But they are so small that it’s hard to warrant their inclusion. And they make no admissions exceptions for athletes, which really kills their revenue sports. But they would make an intriguing addition.

KU and Mizzou want to go north and/or east (or south). The B1G would be fools not to add them and ISU and just hold out for ND as #16.

Leave TTech alone. They have demonstrated that they have a wont to be a top level research institution. They have come a long way, and they have a ways to go. But they have committed themselves to being a true state tech institution. And they have the backing of their state (which is weird, because Texas has crapped all over education in the last two decades). If Lubbock was the Lubbock of 20 years ago, then I would say forget it. But it’s become enlightened in a short time (not fully, but some is better than none). They would need to comply with minimum admissions standards for athletics. But I don’t hear anyone complaining about Okie State, who has yet to show the same drive for academic excellence… and whose football team would be lucky to collectively spell a word.

Hate pods and love an 11 game schedule. If anything, create three six-team divisions and pod those out. But I want more compelling games and less scrambling to buy the weakest patsie there is for a home game.

The Wisdom Cow

you had me until “create three six-team divisions.”

Mike

As a TX alum, if TX has to share revenues to remain in a conference, I’d rather not subsidize either coast. Keep the B12 together.

JackBeav

That’s an “if anything” statement. I like the idea of having real, viable divisions according to NCAA rules which would allow a league championship over some hodge-podge system which only gives a flavor of the league and doesn’t guarantee anything.

JackBeav

Besides, if a Pac 16 is anything but east and west, we get laughed out of the room and off the TV’s. And Larry loses face for being a politically weak figure who can’t give a public too stupid to understand anything beyond simple something simple.

Calfan

Sid: the PAC deal was set to expire in 2012 whether it expanded or not. The only question was whether expansion would dilute the pie, which it did not. The PAC chose CU and Utah, because they were the best academic fits nearby. It could have easily been another two, or, as Wilner and many others argued, no one. The PAC, however, doesn’t “owe” CU special treatment for it having joined us. Everyone here gets an equal voice and no one should feel they are “owed” a thing.

Karl Benson

Looks like West Virginia will be stuck in the new B1GEA2T after the ACC and the SEC both rejected the hillbillies.

===

The new B1GEA2T:

Notre Dame (non-football)
West Virginia

Cincinnati
Louisville

South Florida
Central Florida

Kansas
Kansas State

Iowa State
Missouri (if it doesn’t end up in the ESS EEE CEE)

Texas Tech
TCU

=====

BYU will probably be invited for football only, but BYU will probably reject the invitation.

======================

Didn’t make the first cut:

Baylor
Memphis
Houston
East Carolina
Southern Mississippi
Boise State

The Wisdom Cow

Jack, I was just being flip. 3 X 6 = 18

JackBeav

I know. I wouldn’t want that formula. But it would be better than pods.

CalTexan

Right on JackBeav. The Pac is in a postion to and must expand. Is UT any more important than Cal, UCLA, OR, Wash, Stanford. Nope. Contractually make them play by the rules. If UT is unwilling, wish them well — but keep Tech.

Tech is not a blue-blood, tea-sipping pinky in the air, Big 10 type university with an enormous endowment. Nor does it profess to be. Tech is, however, a growing research university that is as selective as Oklahoma, Kansas and KState, as well as many Pac 12 member schools, with a huge fan base which exceeds 911,000 (New York Times, 9/19/11), surpassing all Pac 12 schools sans USC, UCLA and Cal. No need for UT.

Symphony Sid

Calfan:

If Larry Scott could have negotiated the deal he got without adding teams, why add teams? Fact is, he knew he couldn’t markedly increase the dollars per team without having a conference championship football game, hence the addition of 2 or more teams. Once that bridge was crossed, Utah and CU were the obvious candidates.

No one here’s asking for special treatment for CU. All we ever said was, if there’s going to be a division with the LA teams in it, we would like (not demand) to be in it, for reasons previously stated. I actually liked Wilner’s zipper alignment with guaranteed rivalry games better, but that didn’t happen.

Even if things stay as they are now, a Pac 12 with N/W & S/E divisions, CU’s LA recruiting advantage will be slim to none. Jon Embree will be asking kids to travel 1100 miles from home and live in a very different climate. He’ll be going up against UCLA, USC, a much improved SDSU team, Fresno St., and the Bay Area teams. All much closer to home and more like what they’re used to. I really don’t see us getting much of an advantage over the PNW teams in this regard. It’s more about connecting with the alumni and hopefully raising a few bucks.

Also, am I correct in remembering that the Pac 10 didn’t schedule 9 conference games per year? There must have been years when the PNW schools didn’t make it to LA, playing only one LA school at home and not play the other at all.

I posted the pod idea about two weeks ago, did not consider rotating pod members but if you do the two division thing using two given pods to create one division (used for scheduling only) it could work. The 3-2-2-2 model is most balanced, except it would take a four year cycle to complete the home/away not two as suggested in the article. You can see my proposed pods/divisions and mock schedule for every school here:

By my count there are 28 kids from CA on the current CU roster, all of whom were recruited while you were in the Big 12. So it seems like it hasn’t been all that hard to convince kids to move 1100 miles to a different climate. Actually it looks like CA is the best-represented state on the roster after CO. Even if placed in the east of a divisional split you’ll be able to pitch the fact that you have a guaranteed Pac-12 game each year in CA, you’re in the top league in the West, and you have an equal shot at the Rose Bowl. Seems like you’d be just fine, don’t you think?

CalTexan: TX is WAY more important to Larry Scott than any other school. It’s a simple matter of revenues, and TX brings more than any other school. Scott knows that TX won’t come into the Pac12 on an equal revenue basis. Why would TX be willing to subsidize all of the Pac12 schools?? If TX felt revenue sharing (which in TX is known as communism) were an essential part of all of its conference affilation options, the Big12 would stay together. (TX would rather subsidize local schools because of the many advantages of a local conference.) If TX joins the Pac12, it will enrichen every Pac12 school versus where they stand today, even if TX keeps more than 1/16th of the revenues, and that is how Scott would like to sell unequal revenue sharing to get the necessary votes to invite TX in.

The Wisdom Cow

You have to wonder if this is really just going to be a yearly ordeal for Big 12 teams to blackmail more money out of ESPN.

The more CU tries to explain why they are entitled to complain and whine about something they thought was gauranteed to happen when they originally entered the confernece (go in an east division with Texoma schools), the more I will enjoy it when they find themselves in that east division.

JackBeav

@ccrider #225,
That was superiority? I was not… um… enrichened in that way.

RStark

Seems to me with the expansion and access to more teams, the conference schedule should increase to 11 games and leave one nonconference game. That way USC & Stanford could still play ND, Utah-BYU, Oklahoma-Nebraska, Texas-Texas A&M could still happen. You do the east-west divisions. A team would play the other 7 in their division and 4 games against the other division. You guarantee the east division schools that they will play either USC or UCLA every year. So in any given 4 year period an eastern division school would have had two games in LA. It’s not perfect, but it is better access. It takes away some of the nonconference scheduling problems, but you would be getting some matchups that used to be non-conference with the addition of the Oklahoma & Texas schools. With the additional strength of schedule and travel, if a school wanted they could either schedule the regional FCS patsy, schedule a Mountain West or WAC school that was close or try to hook up with a Big 10, SEC or ACC school.

Symphony Sid

@potstirrer

“@Symphony Sid,

By my count there are 28 kids from CA on the current CU roster, all of whom were recruited while you were in the Big 12. So it seems like it hasn’t been all that hard to convince kids to move 1100 miles to a different climate. Actually it looks like CA is the best-represented state on the roster after CO. Even if placed in the east of a divisional split you’ll be able to pitch the fact that you have a guaranteed Pac-12 game each year in CA, you’re in the top league in the West, and you have an equal shot at the Rose Bowl. Seems like you’d be just fine, don’t you think?”

—————-

Some of that is Dan Hawkins’ legacy. He recruited California heavily at Boise and continued with that at CU. Embree has UCLA on his resume and plenty of contacts out there, so it’s entirely possible this trend will continue. I’m sure they want it to.

Historically, CU concentrated on Texas and Louisiana when going out of state, secondarily on California. People like Alfred Williams, Kanavis McGhee, Kordell Stewart, etc. found their way north from Texas and Louisiana.

I’m cool with recruiting California whether we’re in a division with them or not. Yes, we’ll be fine even if we get stuck in an eastern division. CU’s desire to be in a division with the LA schools is to connect with the vast alumni base out there. We can recruit CA regardless of division status.

BTW, did you happen to notice what CU receiver Paul Richardson did to Cal a couple of Saturdays ago? He’s a UCLA castoff we took a chance on.

@RGD

“The more CU tries to explain why they are entitled to complain and whine about something they thought was gauranteed to happen when they originally entered the confernece (go in an east division with Texoma schools), the more I will enjoy it when they find themselves in that east division.”

—————-

If CU people thought it was guaranteed they’d end up in an eastern division with Texas and OU, why would we be pissing and moaning about it now? CU President Bruce Benson is already on record saying “That’s not what we wanted when we changed conferences” (or words to that effect). He has also said he’ll vote against expansion if it means eastern division. I don’t know his position on pods.

CU joined the Pac 10 with the possibility that it wouldn’t grow any further and stay 11 teams, like the Big 10 was before Nebraska joined them. They were totally cool with Utah joining and making it a 12 team conference. They never once expressed a desire that the TX/OK schools join to make it a superconference and were quite probably lobbying against it behind the scenes.

Things get interesting if/when Baylor and Iowa St. file a lawsuit against A&M. I sort of wonder why they didn’t sue CU and NU when they decided to leave.

Things also get interesting if Texas just says ‘screw it’ and goes Independent. Then A&M can change their mind about leaving, and they add Houston to get back to 10.

Things also get VERY interesting if the Pac 12 votes against expansion, standing pat at 12. That forces Texas to make a very interesting decision, and basically throws a wrench in the entire superconference movement.

RStark

I guess my assumption is also that when we end up with 4 superconferences, that their will be a playoff, so it doesn’t matter if the other conferences choose to play 11 games or not, if you with your division and the Pac-16 championship game, you have your shot at the national title. We just have a unique situation here with everyone wanting exposure in LA so you have to make that work. I think with the east-west divisions and 11 games, the old pac 8 are jumping for joy and the east division gets guaranteed access to SoCal that they never had before. And to extrapolate, the west division would be playing in Texas twice every 4 years as well. So everyone gets expanded exposure.

JK

So does Scott offer only OU and OSU? Or does the Big 12 reconstitute itself for another year (only to implode when someone else starts complaining about Texas)?

Symphony Sid

There’s an interesting article at The Oklahoman, biggest paper in the state of OK. OU Prez David Boren is calling for Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe to be fired, blaming him for kowtowing to Texas, which drove Nebraska and the Aggies out of the conference, creating the current mess they’re in.

He wants an interim commissioner, and some pretty significant changes to The Longhorn Network. There’s some talk of revenue sharing from the network as well. Texas will almost certainly have to do some of these things if they go west to the Pac or east to some other conference, so they may throw the rest of the Big 12 a bone and pretend to play nice for a few years.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Larry Scott will feel out the current Pac 12 presidents before any sort of public vote is taken. My guess is if he can’t get to 9 votes he’ll speed dial the TX/OK schools and warn them they don’t have a home on the West Coast, and find an excuse to not take the vote publicly. Better to not show cracks within the conference if it’s a fait accompli that expansion won’t happen.

If that happens, Texas goes Independent or knuckles under to OU’s demands and the Big 12 is saved for now.

Even if my worst case scenario of CU in an eastern 8 team division comes true, I’m still really happy to have Larry Scott running this conference. Roger Goodell should be looking over his shoulder at the dude. Scary competent.

The Wisdom Cow

Mizzou would be insane to turn down SEC money. The SEC was smart to offer now. They probably know is Texas tries it’s standard power play, Scott would walk away and offer Missouri and Kansas with the OK schools. I don’t know how Mizzou turns down the SEC.

Also, this makes it easier for the Big 12 to stall things out another year. One less team means 2 exit fees and the money is split up between even less teams.

JK

The Big 10 is the other wild card in this — if they have decided not to expand until 2014 due to tv deals (and the Notre Dame/NBC contract), then schools like Missouri and Kansas may well want to preserve the status quo as long as possible to avoid the Big East/Leftover League before a possible bid to the B1G.

The Big 12 will blow up — it’s just a matter of when it happens.

Re Missouri — I’m not sure they want the SEC. If the Big 12 survives, they’ll get close to SEC money with the new Big 12 deal, which will net each school somewhere in the $15-20m per year range.

Symphony Sid

Mizzou chancellor Brady Deaton is the chairman of the Big 12 Board of Directors. He can’t be the one to put the final nail in the coffin after publicly and repeatedly saying he’s doing everything he can to save the Big 12.

But if everything goes to hell, he can sleep at night knowing there’s a soft landing waiting for him. SEC said they’ll wait until the Big 12 melodrama is resolved. That’s more than Iowa State, Baylor and the KS schools can say.

ccrider55

Symphoney Kid:

Agree on Scott, and am concerned that if he feels that the advice he is giving is losing out to parochial interests he may just choose to take his talents to another arena. Perhaps a professional sports league? Or I’m sure his abilities would cross over into multiple other arenas.

Beyond what the article says I would add that a new Big 12 commissioner must be proactive in expanding the conference to 12 and implementing harsh exit penalties. I’m sure Marinatto is getting an ear full from Big East presidents at their meeting tonight. I hope OU is serious about trying to save the conference. Last year, Texas held the cards. This year, it’s all Oklahoma.